NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-20-2025 11AM EDT

Episode Date: April 20, 2025

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Noor Ram, MPR News in Washington. Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen says the Trump administration is thumbing its nose at the Constitution. The Supreme Court has ordered that it facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, who was illegally deported to a Salvadoran prison. When Hollen had met with Abrego-Garcia in El Salvador last week. He told NPR he must be returned. If you can deny one person their constitutional rights, that is a threat to the constitutional

rights of everybody who lives in the United States of America. So that's the bottom line. They need to obey the court orders and bring him home so he can have due process. Ben Holland also said the U.S. is paying El Salvador to keep the prisoners. He said he doesn't think Americans want their tax money spent in defiance of constitutional rights. Tens of thousands of people rallied across the country yesterday to protest a wide variety of President Trump's recent actions. Alaska Public Media's Eric Stone reports from a demonstration at the state capitol in Juneau.

It's not the first time 500 people have braved cold rain and wind to protest Trump here in Juneau and organizer Megan Lingle says it won't be the last. We are going to keep showing up until they listen to us. She held a sign saying, bring Kilmar home. That's a reference to the man the Trump administration deported to El Salvador in what government lawyers called an administrative error. Another organizer, Erin Brakel, says

Alaska is suffering from cuts by Elon Musk's Department of Government efficiency effort. Alaska receives more federal funding per resident than any other state. We're in a lot of trouble in this state because of Donald Trump's policies. Federal cuts have hit fishing, forestry and weather forecasting especially hard here in Alaska.

For NPR News, I'm Eric Stone in Juneau. Pope Francis had a brief meeting with Vice President J.D. Vance this morning in his residence inside Vatican City. Megan Williams reports. The Vatican says Pope Francis met privately with Vance on Easter morning to exchange holiday greetings. The brief encounter came a day after Vance held more formal talks with senior Vatican officials. Francis, still recovering from pneumonia, did not attend those meetings. Vance, a Catholic convert, has publicly clashed with the Pope over immigration. Francis

has called President Donald Trump's crackdown a quote, disgrace and indirectly rebuked vance for using Christian values to justify hardline immigration policies. The Pope called the immigration policy a quote, major crisis for the US. For NPR News, I'm Megan Williams at the Vatican. As he is still recovering, the 88-year-old pope did not celebrate Easter mass today, but did appear in St. Peter's Square in his Pope Mobile, drawing cheers and applause.

Applause he stopped occasionally to bless babies brought up to him. This is NPR News in Washington. The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for large swaths of Oklahoma, as well as parts of Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, and southern Illinois today. Oklahoma was hit by severe weather yesterday. Police say a woman and a boy died when their car was caught in floodwaters. The capsule carrying NASA's oldest serving astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts landed in Kazakhstan early today, they'd completed a seven-month mission aboard

the International Space Station. The BBC's Orlando Teal has more. Standing by for touchdown and touchdown. The landing in the remote steppe area of Kazakhstan took place on schedule in the early morning. The three men were carried one by one out of the capsule and given time to adjust to gravity before being whisked away by helicopter. The American astronaut Don Pettit, who is celebrating his 70th birthday, looked disorientated as he was carried out, but there was no indication of any major problem.

One of the Russian cosmonauts' first move, as he returned to Earth, was to peel and eat an Easter egg, handed to him by one of the crew. The BBC's Orlando Teal. In case you missed it, Juno won Scotland's Corgi Derby yesterday. The Corgi was the favourite breed of the late Queen Elizabeth II. The race was first held in 2022 to mark her 70 years on the throne. This year, 16 dogs competed, all dressed in bright sweaters. Juno came from behind in the final stretch to win the trophy and dog treats.

I'm Nora Rahm, NPR News in Washington.